What is recorded here

Breakage snaps the cross-head and severs the dexter band, yet the seven-armed fleur-de-lys still emerges from the limestone. Nicholas Whyt lies beneath thegrave slab in Callan, his name preserved beside a chevron engrailed and three mullets. The Latin border promises one hundred and sixty days of indulgence to everyone who speaks his name. That transaction turned a private death into a public ritual, drawing strangers into the nave to perform mercy for a man who stopped resisting time in 1541.

Lying prostrate in the centre of the nave of St Mary’s church (KK026-010012-), Callan. The upper portion of a limestone slab (total L 1.76m; Wth 0.97m; min. T 0.11m). It is decorated with a banded cross with a seven-armed segmented cross-head with fleur-de-lys terminals, carved in relief. There is a three-barred knop below the cross-head and above the band. Beneath the truncated dexter band there is a heraldic shield bearing the Whyte coat of arms, described by Carrigan (1905, vol. 3, 301) as, ‘a chevron engrailed, between three mullets’. There is an inscription around the border (Wth 012m) in latin, in raised Black Letter script which has been transcribed by Carrigan (ibid. 300) as, ‘Hic jacet discretus vir Nicol….Whyt qu……..D M CCCCCC xli q cui aia oib Pr & ave dicetibus clx dies indulget concedut’ and translated as, ‘Here lies the discreet man Nicholas Whyt formerly…… 1541. An indulgence of 160 days is granted to all who pray for his soul’. The slab is broken vertically from the top, through the cross-head and sinister band. Compiled by: Jean Farrelly Date of upload: 13 November 2019

Early Christian gravestone, 7th–9th century. It is significant as an example of Insular Christian art, with the rare seven-armed cross indicating possible monastic or high-status burial associations.

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